News written by Jari Ketola (June, 2004)

The U.S. Senate has passed the PIRATE Act bill, which raised several concerns when it was proposed. The Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation (PIRATE) Act of 2004 allows the Department of Justice to file civil lawsuits against alleged copyright pirates. Up until now the copyright holders have had to file the lawsuits themselves.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and many others, see the PIRATE bill as a lobbying victory of the recording industry, whose only purpose is to make the taxpayers fund their quest against P2P piracy. P2P United executive director Adam Eisgrau said that "The recording industry needs to find a way to turn the 60 million U.S. residents who have used file-sharing software into customers, instead of regarding them as criminals."

The bill still has to be passed by the House and signed by President George Bush to become a law. It was introduced in March, and moved to the Senate floor without a hearing.

Source: ITworld.com

According to ITIC the General Manager of SCPP (Société Civile des Producteurs Phonographiques, the French RIAA) Marc Guez has announced that about 20 "John Doe" suits have been filled in Paris and other provinces of France against copyright infringers. The lawsuits are seen as a prelude to more lawsuits expected to be filed in September.

More than 200 people have already been sued for P2P copyright infringements in Europe. Some of them have settled out of court, while other cases are still in process. Copyright infringement might lead to a sentence of 3 years in prison and up to 300,000 euros ($365,000) in fines in French penal court. The plaintiffs can seek further compensation for their damages in civil court. According to ITIC it is not possible to settle a case out of court in France.

Source: ITIC

Linux distributors Novell and Red Hat announced that their future distributions would include Real Networks' RealPlayer and Helix Player. Real will also begin distributing the Helix Player under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). The GPL license will be offered as an alternative to the previous license schemes -- RealNetworks Public Source License and RealNetworks Community Source License.

Real and Helix Players will probably prove popular especially among users who prefer a familiar GUI, and are satisfied with the software bundled in the distribution. Others may prefer to use other open source players available, such as Xine, MPlayer, and Video Lan Client (VLC), which offer a much wider variety of codec support.

Source: Internetnews.com

The U.S. Senate is preparing a bill that would ban P2P file-swapping networks, and could also imperil some consumer electronics devices. The Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act bill introduced on Wednesday would make whoever intentionally induces any violation of copyright law legally liable for the violations.

In April 2003 federal court judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast is not liable for copyright infringements that take place using their software. Wilson saw that P2P software is comparable to a video recorder, which can be used for both legal and illegal purposes. In 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that manufacturers of VCRs cannot be held responsible for possible copyright infringements.

Since the IICA is designed to counter the rulings and put the blame on manufacturers, it could outlaw not only P2P networks, but also ReplayTV, and even the VCR. According to Jessica Litman, a professor at Wayne State University who specializes in copyright law, the wording of the bill is so broad that it might even put the Web sites distributing the software at risk for inducing infringement.

Senate members downplay the concerns by stating that the bill is aimed specifically at those who "conduct their business with the intention of inducing others to break the law".

According to an article published by Team Xbox (an IGN site) Microsoft has issued a statement that yesterday's rumors regarding Xbox 2 not being backwards compatible, were not true.

"Recent stories in the press about future Xbox products are nothing more than pulp fiction. Microsoft hasn’t made any announcements regarding the next generation, so it’s far too early to speculate about specifics, including backward compatibility. In fact, this media conjecture is irresponsible. The credibility of any publication willing to compromise fact in favor of a catchy headline must be questioned. Xbox fans are smart enough to distinguish truth from sensational reporting."

Now as you can see, Microsoft isn't saying that Xbox 2 will be backwards compatible. They are probably still trying to make up their mind on the matter. However using a different CPU platform might make it impractical to try and implement adequate backwards compatibility.

Source: Team Xbox

For the first time since the introduction of copy protected CDs (or non-standard 12cm plastic discs, as I like to call them) one of them has managed to top the United States album charts. According to Nielsen SoundScan figures, "Contraband" by Velvet Revolver was the #1 album in the U.S. last week.

The album, released by BMG, uses MediaMax copy protection, and the protection is also clearly marked on the album cover. MediaMax isn't actually a copy protection at all. When you insert an MediaMax protected CD in a Windows or Max OS X computer it will automatically install a device driver on your computer, which detects when audio CDs are being ripped, and distorts the audio. Systems running, for instance, Linux or older versions of Mac OS are not affected at all. Windows (and probably Max OS X) users can "bypass" the protection simply by disabling autorun.

Obviously BMG sees the success of the album as a sign that people accept the copy protection. That is, of course, probably the most naive conclusion in the history of logic. If the consumer doesn't have an alternative, and wants to buy the album by former members from Stone Temple Pilots and Guns 'Roses, maybe he or she buys the copy protected album? Should there have been both a copy protected and a standard Audio CD available on the market, then you could perhaps make some conclusions about the acceptance of copy protection. To make things interesting, BMG could have priced the standard CD a buck more expensive.

According to reports from a private meeting held between Hollywood and technology executives, Steve Jobs urges movie studios not to license content for HD-DVD right off the bat. Instead the movie industry should wait until they can be assured by the technology companies that the HD-DVD movies cannot be copied using the HD-DVD burners, which are bound to come along sooner or later.

Jobs, who appeared more as the CEO of Pixar, even went so far as to say that high-definition DVD burners should not be bundled with computers at all unless the piracy concerns are properly addressed. Mac Observer's article, which quotes the Wall Street Journal, doesn't specify what sort of assurances Jobs would require.

Source: Mac Observer

321 Studios, the makers of the well known X Copy software products, have been sued yet again -- this time by three computer game makers.

Atari Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Vivendi Universal Games Inc. joined forces and sued 321 Studios under DMCA allegations. According to Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association trade group representing U.S. publishers of computer and video games, 321's Games X Copy is illegal under the DMCA law, because its sole purpose is to circumvent copyright protection.

What makes this case absolutely absurd is the fact that backing up computer software is perfectly legal under provisions in federal copyright law. There are other products, such as Alcohol 120%, which are capable of backing up copy protected discs as well, and they are, like Games X Copy, perfectly legal. The only difference is that 321 Studios has been actively speaking on behalf of consumer rights -- every consumer should have the right to make backups of the products they have purchased, if there is a possibility of the original product being damaged. Obviously the movie industry, and now the video game industry, don't agree with this.

Sharman License Holdings will not be able to file for an Europe-wide trademark for P2P utility Kazaa. According to German company Nemetschek CREM Solutions the word "Kazaa" is phonetically too close to the company's own "Casa" -trademark. The Casa trademark is used for a database software.

The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, OHIM agreed with Nemetschek, which means that Sharman has to file for a separate trademark in every European country, and it will most likely not be able to use the Kazaa brand name at all in Germany.

Source: The Register

The DVD Forum Steering Committee has approved the HD DVD-ROM Physical Specifications. In a meeting held on June 9-10, 2004, the committee approved the specification for the mandatory audio codec of DVD-Audio ROM-Zone -- the codec will be High-Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC).

However the committee did not approve the motion to "retain the provisional approval of the CODECs until the level of information concerning the licensing terms for VC-9 is the same as the level of information concerning the licensing terms for AVC/H.264." What this really means in terms of the VC-9 (Microsoft's WM9) codec, is unclear.

Source: DVD Forum

The joint on-demand video venture Movielink has been cleared of all antitrust suspicions by the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division. The division found no evidence that Movielink has led to collusion or decreased the industry's willingness to license content to competing services.

The antitrust worries were justified, because Movielink is a joint venture of Time Warner and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, among others.

Online DVD renter Netflix has said it will begin testing online movie delivery this year. Movielink faces competition from other services as well, such as Disney's MovieBeam.

Source: Reuters

Out of the 200 people sued by the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) in Europe eighteen have settled their case out of court. Seventeen of those are from Denmark, and one from Germany.

The IFPI has been suing European song-swappers since March, and since then, for instance, 30 people have been prosecuted in Italy, and 88 in Denmark. According to IFPI 23 more Danish cases are currently benign negotiated out of court.

The number of illegal swapping has dropped by 30% from last year -- thanks to litigation and legal music download services, says IFPI.

The IFPI is looking to file more lawsuits in other western European countries, such as France and United Kingdom.

Source: BBC

Apple will be hosting a press conference in London on June 15th. At the conference Apple, who billed the event "The biggest story in music is about to get even bigger.", is expected to launch iTunes in Europe on that date.

The iTunes music store has been very successful since its launch in the United States -- partly because it took quite a while before it faced serious competition there. In Europe the story could be somewhat different, though, since OD2-based services have been around quite a while now, and Roxio launched its Napster service in UK two weeks ago.

Analyst expect, however, that iTunes shouldn't have too much trouble catching up with its rivals thanks to soaring iPod sales.

Source: News.com

The prices of full-length CDs fell to $13.29 in the first quarter of 2004 according to a study. That's a decline of 4 percent from Q1 2003.

The survey, released by the NPD Group, also says that the average CD price at top 50 nationwide sellers was $13.36 -- down 3.1 percent from 2003.

NPD President Russ Crupnick stated that both the file-sharing boom and growing competition for entertainment dollars are behind the decline. Both the DVD and video game markets are growing at double digit rates.

Source: News.com

The recent legal struggles at 321 Studios have resulted into more than just problems for the company -- nearly 300 people have received the pink slip during the past couple of months.

Both the movie industry and copy protection company Macrovision have won injunctions against 321 Studios' DVD backup software, which has pretty much put the sales of the software on halt. The company is still offering software for burning DVD video, creating DVD slideshows, backing up games and more, but they just were not enough to save the jobs.

According to 321 Studios' Director of Public Relations Julia Bishop-Cross, the company has shrunk from nearly 400 employees down to about 50.

Robert H. Moore, founder and President of the company, has not given up on fighting the rulings. According to him the consumer should have the right to fair-use of the product he or she has purchased -- including circumventing possible copy protections in order to make a backup copy. The controversial DVD X Copy software has several anti-piracy provisions, which makes it impractical to make movie copies for resale.

Good luck to 321 Studios -- and to the American consumer. You can read more about the Protect Fair Use campaign at ProtectFairUse.org.

Isamu Kaneko, the developer of Winny peer-to-peer software, was indicted by the prosecutors on Monday. Kaneko was charged with violating the Japanese Copyright Law by creating a tool to assist people in downloading and sharing copyrighted material.

Kaneko has denied the charges, which by any standard, are odd at best. The prosecutors, however, said Kaneko has stated that he does not support the current copyright system, and has also commented that violating copyright laws is the way to fight the system.

Software developers are supporting Kaneko. Which ever way the ruling goes, it will set an important precedent.

Source: Asahi